


Central City Lights

by Crymore



Series: OC x Len [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Central City Rogues, F/M, Gratuitous Cameos from beloved Justice league members, Later mature themes, Len’s idea of relationships are a bit warped, Like Murder, Romance, and making out, but then again so are Loralee’s, emo Barry allen, follows the show to a point, len is a bit of a stalker, metas everywhere, rogues - Freeform, what a surprise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crymore/pseuds/Crymore
Summary: Loralee was used to having a lovers’ quarrel with life and to being alone with her secrets and her reptiles.Then the partical accelerator exploded and three months later she can do the impossible.Now her college best friend, Barry Allen, is asking her to use her new-found powers for good instead of hiding them.Struggling with her abilities are hard, especially when some dumbass in a parka is out to annoy the crap out of her.





	1. Que the Cheesey Over-Used Intro!

**Author's Note:**

> Que the cheesy intro!

My name is Loralee Vukavitch, and I am the most poisonous creature on this planet. When the STAR Labs partical accelerator exploded, I was given inhuman abilities, along with my friend from college, Barry Allen. With his encouragement the the aid of my new friends at STAR Labs, I might be able to do some good in this world.

Having the abilities of a reptile would be harder if I didn’t study them for a living, but adjusting to the flexibility, camouflage, and the toxins I can dispense is more challenging then I thought. Helping Barry keep Central City safe became challenging when a rogue named Leonard Snart started taking a special interest in me after my debut. Now every secret I swore to take to the grave is starting to come to light.

I should have listened to my father and moved to Coast when I had the chance.


	2. A Brief Beforance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unfortunate backstory of Barry’s old friend.

Loralee groaned loudly and dropped her head onto the top desk of her office. The smooth white plastic and bulbous design was supposed to make it look futuristic, but to her it looked like the sale item of the week at Ikea. She really shouldn't have gone out drinking last night with Dr. Kwasimoto last night; birthday celebration be damned. The bota-toxicologist* could have just gotten sloshed by herself, but nooooo, she _had_ to drag her fellow "poison doctor" for Bonding time. Were Loralee's mid-thirties going to be like this always? Working half-sober with yesterday's regrets, working too late into the night to make up for the half-assed way she had been working earlier.

She groaned again. Loralee decided to stop thinking and focus on her report about the effects of Black Mamba venom on the nervous system of a paralyzed individual. Her boss needed to rip  it off as his own work for a lecture next week.

The sound of typing drowned out the small television placed at the corner of the desk. Some reporter droning on about some scientific step forward. The redheaded doctor only really heard bits and pieces of story, the words "Star" "Wells" and "Accelerator" were the most repeated. 

It was a grand total of four minutes before Loralee got distracted again, this time by Weaver and Dash. The little two-headed milk snake edged along the keyboard, occasionally Weaver would hit a numerical key, or Dash's tongue would flicker out to smell the air. Loralee smiled fondly at her old friends and picked up the shared body, bringing the heads to her face.

"Hello babies, I thought Houdini was the escape artist?" she cooed, the small heads nuzzling her familiar face. With a fond sigh, Loralee turned to face the wall behind her.

Loralee never fancied herself good with her hands (they were steady only to the extent that she could keep still long enough to collect venom from various snakes), the the wall behind her desk was by far her favourite idea. She decked the wall with long shelves with special hooks hooks that could carry the cords of the head lamps and heating rocks to the outlet on the side wall. The entire wall was packed from floor to ceiling with terrariums, and each glass constructed housed a reptile. Lizards, snakes, frogs, each terrarium specialized for the residing animal. The entire wall glowed from the lights and 

Loralee liked to keep her pets close. Very close. The perks of being a herpeto-toxicologist*, she supposed. It didn't hurt that it scared her boss and any unliked coworkers away from bothering her unless needed. Who was she kidding it was a major perk. The only person who was terrified of her "Wall of Poison Pets" was Dr. Kwasimoto, but then again she had a personal garden filled with poisonous plants. Maybe it was a shared interest connection that prevented her from being weirded out. 

Speaking of Houdini, the mischievous chameleon was out of his cage again. After gently placing the milk snake(s) back into their cage, Loralee made her way down to the "cupboards". In reality it was just a very long and thin hallway that held the liquidized DNA of her pets and then some on one side, and the poisons and toxins on the other side. It was the second warmest place in the building, as it was next to the heater downstairs. It was Houdini's favourite hiding spot, or at least the place he goes to the most during his escapades. Loralee took the distraction of her pet as a gift and figured her boss could get stuffed. If he wanted the report so badly, he could type it. Beside, it was a Friday night, she should be out having fun of some sort.  

Well, chameleon tracking is pretty fun.

The hallway out of her office was dimly lit, which wasn't unusual for this time of night. The trek down to the cupboards was silent save for the quiet click of Loralee's heels against the linoleum. If the bespectacled herpeto-toxicologist didn't work with fifty-foot-long venomous monstrosities on a daily basis, she might have scared. Loralee prided herself on not being easily frightened.

After the reader scanned her card, the sound of the locking mechanism falling was thunderous in the still air of the facility. And if Loralee jumped at the noise no one had to know. absolutely no one. Especially Dr. Kwasimoto, who would never let it go. 

The lights were low in the thin hallway of the cupboard, coming from the floor. Loralee designed the hallway to be like that, finding that the serumized DNA stayed better in low lights, along with the venom an poisons. The air was not quiet, as there was a gentle shifting of glass about halfway down the hall. Loralee smirked.

"There you are, you little trouble maker." she giggle quietly, moving down hall. 

The funny thing is about chameleons, is that the camouflage is great only at a distance, and Houdini was about 18 inches away from her. Silly lizard.

Houdini was naturally displeased with being found and made a guttural sound of annoyance (Loralee thinks so at least, she studies animal physiology, not psychology) as he was lifted from the wall paneling behind the tubes of liquid. He stuck to the sleeve of Loralee's white lab coat as he has a hundred time before and clumsily made his way up the shifting cloth beneath his sticky toes.

Loralee giggled again, but the sound was cut off when there was jingling of glass sounded again. Confused, the redhead looked to the wall of DNA. 

 

The entire wall was shaking. Both walls were shaking. Violently.

 

Loralee tried to moved back to the door, but there was a sudden jolt that made the floor buckle and she along with it. The shelves seemed to just... fall; the sound of clinking glass, shattering glass, filling the air. 

 

Loralee would have screamed is she had a chance to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bota-toxicologist- a person who studies how the poisons and toxins of plants affect the human body. (Not a real thing but, come on, that would be rad.
> 
> *Person who studies how the poisons/toxins of reptiles and amphibians affect the human body.
> 
> *I like reptiles and poison, can you tell?


	3. A Rude Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every time Loralee goes to sleep, she wakes up to something worse.

There was a high-pitched whine in the room, and that is what woke Loralee up. A buzz that seemed deafening as she shot upwards in the bed she was laying in. A jagged gasp escaped from her throat as all her muscles pulled from disuse and heavy sheets falling to her waist. The lights above her were blinding and the red head screeched ferally at the blinding glare, throwing herself back into the bed, curling into the fluffed pillow and sobbed at the full body pain she was experianing.

There was chittering about her, someone calling for a doctor, for a sedative, for an officer in the hallway. Loralee groaned as her body ached and felt a too cold hand on her back, and familiar word in an alternative language were murmured in her ear.

There was a pinch in her arm, and there was a sluggish lull in her head before darkness crept around her vision, and the blinding white light that surrounded her faded away, and the kind mumbling and suffocating buzz faded to silence.

\---

The second time Loralee woke up was much more pleasant. The background noise was coming from the hallway, muffle by the closed door. The lights seemed much softer now, bluish white but dim now, and muted by the white curtains around her.

It didn’t take a genius to piece together that Loralee was in a hospital room.

“Miss Vukavitch, it’s wonderful to see that you’re awake.” a kind voice, a bit pitch and loud, said from the side. A groan from the opposite side of her, tired and weary.

“It’s doctor.” she croaked instinctively. God, her throat was sore.

“What?”

Loralee cracked one green eye open and stared at the nurse to her left, titlting her head ever so slightly. The nurse was young and pretty, probably new with brunette hair and pristine scrubs.

“I didn’t go to college for ten years to be a ‘miss’.” she hissed lowly and rolled to her other side, where the most light was coming from. Loralee Vukavitch hated sleeping on her back. “Shit, can someone get me a drink.”

The nurse gasped and Loralee hear her scrambled away as the voice that previously groaned now chuckled.

“You’ve always has such a way with words.”

Loralee smiles with her eyes closed. “Hi papa.” she hummed, her head sinking further into the over-fluffed pillow.

Officer Milton Vukavitch smiled fondly at his daughter. “Hi sweetheart. How’s your head?”

Her eyes squinted at her father, the darkness of his uniform was familiar and comforting. “It’d be better if I knew what happened to put me here.”

The older, balding man shifted and sighed, swiping his thumb across the palm of his hand in nervousness.

“There was an explosion.”

“At my lab?” She asked ludicrously, well, as ludicrously as one could with a raspy throat and unmoving arms. There was seldom a plumbing problem at her research lab by the river, let alone a cause for an explosion. How the hell did an animal research lab explode?

“Not your lab. S.T.A.R.’s” he said gravely.

Loralee vaguely recalled that the famous STAR Labs was attempting to create some sort of accelerator… whatever the hell that was. She wasn’t that sort of scientist, and physics and engineering never interested her. She figured it was some type of energy source for the city, but it didn’t concern her. She personally thought it was an accident waiting to happen, that much energy contained into a controlled plain, turns out she was right. The word 'Wells' echoed from somewhere deep in her head.

“That accelerator thingy, right?” She asked lazily.

“Thingy?" her father chuckled. "Aren’t you a doctor? Shouldn’t you know the proper term?”

Loralee hummed a laugh that vibrated deep in her throat. “I’m not that kind of doctor. Hated mechanics, remember?"

Her father hummed a laughed. "I remember. Threw a fit when it was a required class."

Loralee would have laughed quietly with her father if the lights didn't flicker around her suddenly, distracting her throughly. The red head scrunched her eyebrows in confusion.

"Wazzat?"

Officer Vukavitch looked pained for a brief moment. He licked his lips and looked away from his child to the door, watching nurses and doctors scurry in unison to one direction.

"Sweetheart... the accelorator... it ended up hurting a lot of people."

The next sentence lingered, heard but not spoken.

'Someone you know is also in this hospital.'

Loralee closed her eyes in thought.

"...Was it Yumika Kwasimoto?" she mumbled, dipping her face further into the softness of the pillow.

Her father shook his head. "No, no, she's come to visit a bit actually."

"Was it Lo-"

"It was-" his fat hand dragging down his face interrupted him briefly before he tried to move forward a bit, as if to tell a secret the wooden chair legs screeching in protest. "It was Joe’s kid. Barry.”

Loralee felt cold and scowled instantly. She knew the brunet. They had several classes together in college, they were both stubborn, awkward, and over intelligent youngsters that professors loved and students hated. He was nice, and he was kind, and had a shit life all things considering. And now life threw him another curve.

“Bartholomew? Is he here? What’s wrong with him?” She spat out, trying to sit up. “Is he alive? Was he the reason the the lights flickered?"

Milton stood instantly and gently pushed his daughter back into the sterile mattress. “He’s alive.” He soothed, rubbing her shoulder through the thin material of the hospital gown. “He’s alive, He’s just in a coma.”

Loralee scoffed. “Just a coma? Great!” She laughed, edging on hysteria, tears burning her vision. “World’s nicest person in a coma. Wonderful. Another fucking-“

“Sweetheart calm down.” Milton ordered. It wasn’t his cop voice, it was his Dad voice. It commanded attention and soothed the frazzled nerves. 

So Loralee woke up from a coma, Barry didn't. Well, it had only been a few days, right? It could take weeks for someone to wake up.

With a heaving sigh, Loralee finally managed to sit up completely, her ribs and, well, everything aching. She looked around the room with squinted eyes, assessing her surroundings. Her father sat on her right, in front of the window, the wooden door was closed with a small window displaying the activities of the hallway, and a small wash bin and mirror on the wall to her left. looking in the mirror, Loralee's eyebrows scrunched together. 

There weren't any injuries on her face or neck, or any exposed expanse of flesh. She didn't feel any bandages, just a needle in her arm. 

More importantly her hair was longer.

The red-headed doctor shifted in the bed. "How long was I in a coma for?" Her father's face became pinched and he rubbed his thumb again in the reflection of the mirror. Loralee turned to him and asked again, sterner. "Papa, how long." Her expression must have been severe enough, tone desperate enough to make him answer without the sugar coat.

"Shy three months."

Loralee's breath halted as her stomach dropped.

The nurse opened that door, glass of water in hand, the same time Loralee passed out.

 

\---

 

The bar was dim enough to not strain her eye, and the long-term ban of smoking made the air easy enough to breath. There was hardly anyone there, a few bikers and two men (one bald and terrifying and the other with a buzz cut and a icy face) playing pool in the back. Loralee took a steadying breath before she sipped her drink, deliberately avoiding eye contact with her companion, who was in turn glaring coldly.

"What's with Americans and drinking away problems?" Yumika huffed, tapping her glass on the table twice before drinking her amber liquid.

Loralee scoffed, putting the bottle back on her coaster. "You say that like Japan doesn't have any alcoholics." she snarked.

The Japanese woman shrugged. "We hide it better." There was a tense silence. "You gonna tell me why you decided the best thing to do after waking from a coma and not talking to anyone for two weeks was to get drunk?"

"No."

"Alright. Then tell me what you remembered before the coma." Loralee shot her a look the Yumika scowled at. "Pick one. Why we drink or what you remember."

The boto-toxicologist had always done that. Forcing choices on Loralee, ever since they met.

The red head thought back, all those years ago when she first encountered the Japanese woman. Loralee was fighting for career path at the age of twenty, telling all her advisers that, yes, she knew what she was doing and, yes, she knew that her major technically didn't exist, but Loralee Vukavitch was nothing if not determined. After submitting a paper about the qualities of studying the properties of poisons and venom and the affects on the human body were beneficial to the school board to keep her scholarship at the college, the board was so impressed they published it to a biology catalog, which happened to be in the doctor's office of Yumika Kwasimoto's family pediatrician, and being bored enough, Yumika, who was currently wholly unsure what to do with her life, read the the paper written by some American student.

Yumika liked to say that this was her life-changing moment. 

After discussing her choice with her parents, who agreed with her decision, Yumika took a plane to Coast City University of Biology, hunted down this "Roar-a-ree Vuka-vish" in the library, and gave the bleary eyed red head who had just pulled two all nighters in a row a choice that she was certainly to awake enough to make deeply thought-out decision. 

"Help me study plant poison or tell me how to do it."

As it was mentioned, Loralee was not awake enough to make a good choice. The exact words were, "Sure, whatever." if memory serves right.

Yumika was a natural when it came to plants, and poisons seemed to be her forte. Unfortunately the research studies in Japan were lacking, but in America? Where some weird twenty year old decided to make her life's work revolve around snakes? Well, where else better to go? And who was Loralee to deny aid to a fellow pioneer in the field of toxins?

Thus started the friendship of Loralee and Yumika. The two strange girls who made up their own majors and studied death. 

"Vuka, you're fading." Yumika called, deadpanned, drawing the red head back to the present.

Loralee shook her head, as if to throw the memories back to her subconscious. "Right. Uh, Houdini escaped." 

"No shit." she smiled fondly, lips tight.

"And I went to the cupboard to get him, and..." Loralee shrugged. "Nothing. I woke up in a hospitable-"

"Threw a fit, left, and called me to get drunk." Yumika finished, downing the rest of her beer.

Loralee rolled her green eyes. "Something like that."

The Japanese doctor raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "You didn't need to scare me with that call."

In hide sight calling Yumika about two weeks after waking up and not giving any preamble and asking to meet up at a hole-in-the-wall bar probably wasn't the greatest idea. After realizing that it was Loralee who was calling, Yumika went on a five minute rant in Japanese. Loralee had no idea what she was saying, but the tone suggested that Yumika was not pleased.

"I just- I don't know." Loralee sighed. "I wake up from a three month nap to discover one of my closest friends is in a coma, with no sign of recovery; and I just needed to-," she huffed, "-to see that you were okay."

Yumika's harsh face softened at that. "Barry will wake up. Remember, he's just late to everything."

The red head hummed in thought, sipping more alcohol. Whenever Bartholomew woke up, she was going to kick his ass for being late.

 

\---

 

Work was depressingly easy to get back into. It gave Loralee structure and a schedule. It made her interact with people, wash her clothes, eat, sleep, keep her from going crazy. And only a few assholes brought up the whole coma thing. Namely Anderson, who had a typical high-school crush on her.

God, what a prick.

He was insufferable back before the whole ordeal, now his misguided affections and arrogance where the bane of Loralee's day as he seemed to think that the good Dr. Vukavitch was unable to do menial tasks like open a door or collect venom samples. 

But work was good for her. Kept her busy, her brain occupied so she didn't need to think about Bartholomew laying in some bed in the cold under belly of STAR Labs. Work was a beautiful distraction. 

The first month after waking up, Loralee, for the first time in her life, listened to a doctor of medicine and took it easy. The memories of what put her in the coma never did come back, and the whole memory of that night before the accident was fuzzy and unclear. She reconnected with her old friend, and confirmed that she had not lost her job, and all her pets were still being carefully cared for by Yumika personally. The second month, she called her old boss for permission to come back, and the old man was surprisingly thrilled by the prospect of Loralee's return. Month three and four were blissfully mind-numbing busy with testing, researching, and reconnecting with her pets. Houdini was especially happy to have Loralee back.

Month five is when everything went to shit.

In month five, Loralee shouldered her way into her small home, dropping her bag and coat by the coat tree and shuffled into living room. She had felt nauseous for days and her bones had some sort of deep aching, and the uneasy feelings finally showed on her face enough to gather the attention of Yumika. Normally the ginger woman would ignore the concern of her friend, but said (back-stabbing) friend threatened to inform Dr. Anderson, and that was not a headache that Loralee was willing to deal with. So Loralee was basically black-mailed into going home early, promising Yumika that she would call a doctor should anything becomes worse (she wouldn't) and to take it easy for the rest of the day (she would). She might even take a tums for the burning feeling in her stomach. 

But as Loralee sat on her couch, watching the mid-day news, the burning in her stomach expanded to her chest, her limbs, her head; as if every organ and fluid in her body was replaced with sandpaper and gasoline. She grunted, moving to the bathroom, slowly walking up the stairs, and when it became too much, too dizzying to be upright anymore, to walk she crawled, teeth grounding in a semblance of control, forcing her body forward by her finger tips and elbows, legs unmoving and useless. Once in the tiled room, Loralee turned on the shower, fumbling with the dials when the pain became too much that it burned her vision, making it white and swimming even though the lights were still off. Not bothering to use the hot water or to take off her clothes, she crawled over the high wall of the tub, joints pulling and muscles straining in indescribable pain to get under the icy spray of water.

It does little to sooth the burn beneath the skin.

Loralee began to panic. Her first thoughts go to if she was bit recently by on of her pets, or if she accidentally spilled a sample on something she used frequently. She had been gone for a while, rookie mistakes were bound to happen, right? But she couldn't think of any thing like that happening. Loralee was too paranoid to let something like that happen to herself.

A blinding shot of hurt ran up her spinal cord and she screamed. The discomfort pulsed rapidly, moving from her spine to her shoulders and hips, to her arms and legs. All that that she could do was lie there, her skin cold and clammy and damp, her muscles burning and bones shifting against her will. Loralee thinks she started to cry when she felt her jaw hurt. Maybe she grounded her teeth too much? But then her teeth hurt, the roof of her mouth, her _eyes._

It only took a few seconds to realize that, indeed, every part of Loralee was in excruciating pain; from her insides out. The viscera, veins, flesh. Skin burning, breathing halting, heart straining.

Maybe that was around the time that she blacked out.

 

\---

 

Loralee woke up soaking wet. Oddly, she wasn't cold. She swallowed thickly, her tongue feeling the roughness of the roof of her mouth. Slowly the sound of running water met her ears.

Carefully, as not to slip, the redhead stood up as slowly as she could. All her joints crack, and with a frown at the discomfort in her hands in neck, Loralee cracked those as well. stepping out of the tub, Loralee shuffled out of the dark bathroom, leaving the shower on. The hallway was dark, no light coming from the outside through the window.

'Must be night.' She thought numbly as she slowly made her way to her room, pausing only briefly only pausing to look down the stairway to see the the colors from the television cast a stain glass affect on the living room. Once shouldering open her bedroom door Loralee started to strip. The clothes, heavy with moisture drop to the carpeted floor with muted squelching, and lead a trail to the bed.

Loralee didn't bother with pajamas or even crawling under the sheets to sleep. She was too tired, a strange exhaustion in her causing her her not to care much about anything at the moment. With a deep full body breath, Loralee closed her eyes to finally rest peacefully for the first time in five months.

 

\---

 

She woke up with the sun this time. The dawn's first light filtering through her window, casting orange rays onto the grey carpet. Loralee's green eyes flicked around her room, seeing her open bedroom door, the path of clothing, hearing the sound of running water. The next sequence of events were hazy for Loralee. She threw on dry clothing, turned off the shower, threw the damp clothes into the hamper, and managed to eat half the food in her house before she realized what she was doing.

Downing another can of Dr. Pepper to wash down her fourth panini, Loralee looked to the clock on her kitchen wall. It was just before eleven, around the time Loralee came home the day before. With a deep sigh, the red head brushed the crumbs off her shirt, and walked to her living room. The tv was still droning on, once again it was the news, something about the Particle Accelerator.

A powerful rage swelled within Loralee,her jaw clenched and in a fit she chucked the empty can at the screen, missing but crashing in a satisfying way next to appliance on the wall. The loud sound startled Loralee a small bit, and she turned to the back to the oven, the microwave above.

Loralee prepared herself to see a mess of hair, squinting eyes, and her far too pale skin sickly from her poor sleeping habits in the darken reflection of microwave. Instead she didn't see anything. Confused, she walked to the microwave, standing directly in front of it, as to assure her face would not miss the shiny surface.

But still nothing. Loralee raised her hand to touch the appliance's door, and jumped back when her hand wasn't there.

Frantically, Loralee looked down. Nothing. Body gone, empty air, the sight of tiled flooring making her dizzy. She stumbled back, knocking over several empty cans. Almost instantly her body shifted into view, like colored dust swirling in sunlight until it configured to a corporal being. Loralee stared at her torso, her arms, for several seconds.

She swallowed thickly, tongue feeling heavy and throat feeling dry. It was around then she felt the foreign objects in her mouth. Still half stunned and more than a little scared, she numbly traced the roof of her mouth with the tip of her tongue.

Ah. They were fangs. 

Loralee blacked out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points if you catch Snart's cameo.


	4. The Good Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Barry gets his ass kicked. Various times. And we finally have the first encounter with Leonard. (with way too many time skips).

Loralee Vukavitch was a scientist above all else. She prided herself on her ability to think logically through every situation that is thrown her way and to find the best solution. Ergo, the best way to tackle the whole "turning invisible and fangs thing" was to deal with it like any other problem she had faced before.

Loralee was going to hole herself up and fill up roughly five notebooks with her findings. Because, after all, Loralee was still Loralee, just with a few new additions. Really freaky additions, but still. The first notebook was filled with theories as to why she could do what she could do. Mutations, radiation, exposure to all the venom she had been bitten with, her favorite theory was that preservatives in foods were tainted by the government with mutagens to create super-soldiers illegally (this idea came from man she had a few drinks with a stranger during a convention in Hub City who was also convinced that girl scouts were evil. And granted, five beers in each, the bastard was beginning to make a damn convincing argument.) and her least favorite, there were preservatives that would eventually ruin her body in a way no one could predict (this was Anderson's idea, what he did for the clinic. He was that guy who would tell you that potato chip would eventually give you cancer and that anything that wasn't raised organically was going to kill everyone eventually. What a prick). The second notebook was being filled with her abilities and theoretically what other abilities she could have. 

For example, if she could turn invisible like a chameleon, and if she had fangs like a snake, then she could do a variety of other things. Dispel venom, be hyper-flexible, unhinge her jaw, shed skin, blink the other way, the possibilities were endless! Loralee was practically giddy. She was finally living out her childhood dreams of being a lizard. It was just too good. Not to mention that her vision was corrected. Huzzah for neer needed her glasses again. Sh estill wore them, naturally, but they acted more like wondows rather than proper correctional lens.

The whole invisible thing was the easiest to control, she discovered. Loralee tested it by simple thinking about blending in, focusing on the backdrop behind her, then boom! Invisible. 

Fangs were a bit harder. One memorable occasion Loralee's neighbor ran into his mailbox with his car at 5:30 am, which made a loud noise wich in turn startled Loralee strsight from her bed, fang popping out and cutting her lip. Mumbiling obsenities, she shuffled to the vanity in her room. The cut was small, and bled a bit. What really caught Loralee's attentin, thjough, was her black gums around her fangs and the transparent yellow liquid seeping slowly from her fangs. Loralee kew the liquid in a heart beat.

"Black mamba?"

The cut began to swell slightly, the veins turning black. Panic began to swell in Loralee's chest. Black mamba venom was the deadliest in the world. It takes minutes to kill, and she didn't even have the anti-venom-

The veins faded away. The swelling went down. The stinging disipated... the venom was... gone?

Not exactly how Loralee intented to discover she could produce venom and anti-venom, and she had abosolutely no intention to research this aspect of herself further. Better safe than sorry after all. 

Later, Loralee discover that she can, in fact, unhinge her jaw. As she was trying to get a better look at her fangs, she opened her mouth as wide as she could, stretching until she heard her jaw pop. She dismissed the sound and focused on her new teeth, only realized she effortlessly un and rehinged her jaw hours later in the middle of wriding down her new discoveries.  

Her favorite mutation, though, by far is definitely being able to walk on walls. After tripping and nearly smashing her face into the stairs, her hand stuck to the wall as she tried to steady herself. Like, really really stuck; like every lizard she had previously studied. Practically giggling, Loralee shuck off her socks and shoes, and started crawling along the walls of her home like a gecko, stifling her joyous laughter and her shoddy rendition of the Spider-man theme. 

Journal two was filled with marvelous ideas, but only a few were true, and the first journal had many ideas but no true answer lied within it. 

She was gone from work for a week, and when she came back, Yumika only raised an eyebrow at her sudden renewal for life in general and went back to her plants. For two weeks, Loralee pulled out all her college notes and dug around until she found the chemical equations and such for the venom of all her animals, and focused on trying to dispel it from her fangs. 

Loralee also discovered that she had openings under her finger nails that squirted the venom. 

With much practice and concentration, Loralee was able to create any of her venoms by thought, anti-venoms included. 

She spent so much time alone, studying herself in her lab and office, that Yumika practically dragged her out of her office for lunch every day, never questioning Loralee’s strange behavior but slyly offering an open ear “In case you want to talk about anything.” 

Loralee was careful to only bitch about Anderson and their boss, not once mentioning her current studies.

A few weeks after the whole “rewritten genetic” fiasco, Loralee was typing on her computer, digitizing her notebooks’s contents, when her cell phone buzzed noisily from her desk drawer. 

Instinctively, her fangs dropped down at the sudden noise, but Loralee didn’t anccidently poison herself again (practice makes perfect). With a sigh, and reflectively retracting her fangs, Loralee pulled the device out and stared at the contact name in confusion.

Papa never called her at work.

She flipped her phone open and answered. “Papa? Aren’t you on duty?”

Milton Vukavitch stammered on the other line. “Sweetheart- you gotta, Uh, better come done here. To the station.”

Loralee sat in straighter, nervousness curling in her stomach like a snake. “Why. What happened.” She demanded. 

“Nothing bad, nothing bad, it’s just-“ another sigh, light hearted and happy. “Barry woke up. He’s here.”

Loralee snapped her phone closed to end the call without a farewell and immediately grabbed her purse and keys, marching out of the building to the car.

She was totally on autopilot. She didn’t even realized she finished the twenty minute drive to police station until she was in the lobby, rushing past the large mural of the old gods of law and climbing up the stairs.

The redhead hesitated at the door that would lead to the CSI lab, where Bartholomew would definitely be. Would he be different? Would he remember her? He was in a coma for nine months, what if he had amnethia?

Loralee sighed and mumbled “Fuck it.” under her breath and threw the door open.

A skinny figure stood in the room, messy brown hair and a pale skinned neck. 

Loralee’s breath hitched.

”Bartholomew Allen!” She barked.

The young man turned around on his heel, green eyes wide and lips parted, prepared to speak, But freezing at the sight of Loralee.

The woman beamed brightly, drinking in the sight of a cheesy novelty shirt and a carriage and worn thin converse and unkempt hair.

”You’re late!” She laughed. 

Barry smiled back, crossing the room in wide strides, wrapping his arms tightly around his old friend.

”Loralee, oh my god, I heard about- oof!”

The CSI was cut off by the woman’s knee making contact with his stomach.

”You’re late! Six months late! What the hell?” She scolded. A tirad of words spilled from her lips, angry accusations for not calling her first and for making her worry; throwing in a accusatory finger for good measure.

Barry looked up through his eye lashes from his half bent form, holding his gut, still smiling. “Man, I missed you.”

”You two had always had the strangest friendship.” A familiar voice sounded from further in the lab. Loralee looked up to see two pairs of eyes watching the younger duo.

”Detective Joesph.” She greeted. The man smirked and nodded back. “Papa.”

Officer Vukavitch smiled fondly at his daughter. “We were just filling Barry in on what happened to you after the-“

”The particle whatever explosion, yeah.” She turned to the younger man. “Doesn’t explain why you didn’t call. For someone who’s practically a genius, you’re such an idiot.”

Barry chuckled lowly (as he does when he has a good comeback), straightening up. “You’re right. Should have called you before, ya know, my father, Joe, Iris-“

”Absolutley you should have.”

Barry laughed. “You sound mad but you’re smiling.”

Was she? “Am I?”

The CSI pulled her to the long table which was covered in test tubes and machinery and case files.

”Your dad told me you were in a coma too?”

She shrugged. ”Yeah, for three months.”

Joe scoffed. “She says as if it wasn’t a long time.” Milton chuckled at the detective’s statement.

Barry waved his hand, a look of nonchalance gracing his features. "Let's not talk about all that, we have catching up to do, Loralee." 

The redhead smiled a her friend and made the executive decision to rag him to Jitters to talk, with or without Barry's permission. Neither Officer Vukavitch nor Detective West seemed at all surprised t Loralee's departure, as she always left without a farewell. As the duo marched down the stair, Loralee began to giggle a bit to herself. Feeling the confusion from Barry, she explained herself. "Yumika is gonna kill you for not calling her."

Barry blanched and froze in fear, but a laughing Loralee continued to pull him from the police station.

 

_-_-_-_-_

 

So, apperently, Loralee was not the only person who had freaky powers.

At first, it was the guy who controlled the weather. Strange to the point the doctor nearly didn't believe it until her father told her personally what he saw. Then the man who could make duplicates of himself. That was weird, then Stagg was dead. Some guy who was suposed to be very very dead was not, and he could turn into poisonous gas.

The Streak is in a whole other league. 

These super-powered crinimals show up, reek some havoc, Streak sows up, then th e crinimal is either dead or missing. Loralee didn't know that the speedsters motives were, but thus far she's terrifed of him. Millions of theories floated around her head as to why the Streak was either killing or capturing the other super-powered people. She was a scientist, dmmit, it was her job to theorize. The closest thing to what she was were being picked off, and frankly she was terrifed. Loralee waanted nothing more than to talk to someone, but she really didn't know who. 

Yumika, for as long as they have known eachother, had been a close friend but more in a mentor-mentee way. It didn't help that th eJapanese woman unironically calls Loralee kohai. Then her father, but Milton had a habit to sugar coat the worst of everything and what Loralee needed was inssurance not hope. Barry was her best option, but ever since he woke up, he's been hanging out with the last three scientists who never jumped the STAR Labs boat. Not that Barry couldn't have other friends, it's just that Loralee didn't want him too. 

In her office, the redhead groaned at her selfishness and banged her head on her desk. 

On her computer screen was the latest Streak story, about the gaseous man who suddenly disappeared around Iron Height Prison soon after the Streak appeared. Logically, if Loralee didn't make a spectical of her powers, then the Streak wouldn't find her, and wouldn't off her. No biggie. But there was always that ubderlying fear that she might go home one day to see a figure in red in her living room. 

Finally having enough of her anxiety, Loralee left work early and headed to STAR Labs, where Barry was. If Barry was embarassed that she came to him while he was with his other friends, then tough. Loralee was a selfish person and right now she needed Barry's unintentional candor and devotion. 

As Loralee stalked through the halls of STAR Labs, She thought they would have a better security system. She literally just walked in. There weren't even any locks. Seriously. The lab Loralee worked at made someone have to sign in and be shadowed by a chaperone the entire visit, no exceptions. Hence why Loralee never invites others to her labs.

There wasn't a map to the place, but Loralee just followed the noise into the depths of the building. Laughter and conversation echoed through the hallways and the noise smothered the sound of the soft footsteps of the doctor. A niggle of anxiety clawed within her stomach, but she was too far into her simple plan to back out now. That didn't stop her from ringing the strap of her purse.

"-but that move you did with Nimbus? Totally rad dude."

"But next time don't use the antidote-'

'What is important is that Mr. Allen completed his task skillfully and with no casualties."

Loralee frowned at the conversation, which had the background noise of... macheinery? Frankly it sounded like a treadmill going at light speed, or an entire gym of treadmills going at once. But the fuzzy noise of running motors couldn't destract Loralee from the topic of th econversation as she walked through th edoorway into a large, well-lit room that seemed to hold all four occupants of the building. Wasn't Nimbus the gaseous guy who-

Forget Nimbus. Forget STAR Labs. Forget the new weird Lizard powers because the first thing that Loralee sees when she steps into the ceter room of the Labs was Bartholomew Allen, arguably her best friend, her mentee, her old roommate, was running faster than fast, so quickly that his limbs blurred on a treadmill. A man in a wheelchair looked at her curiously. A question of her person was undoubtedly on his lips, but Loralee's excliamtion cut him off.

"Bartholomew Henry Allen, what in the hell." she growled.

Barry, from behind the glass where the exercize equipment was, looked startled and froze, then was promptly flung from the macheine.

"Loralee! I can, I can explain!" the brunet called and stammerd from beneath the boxes as a woman with deep auburn hair dressed like a private school principal ran into the room with heels. A latino man with long hair looked on startled at her sudden apperance, the lollipop in his mouth falling to the floor.

"Mr. Allen, do you know this woman?" the man in the wheelchair asked, voice calm and curious.

"Uh, yeah, we-"

"What the ever-loving fu-"

"Lora!"

"Are you the Streak?!" she questioned. th eoccupants of th eroom froze, staring at her with shock. Loralee was begining to panic, her fangs dropping and pressing into the inside of her bottom lip as her breath hastened. "Are you really killing all these powered people?"

"What? Lora, no-"

"Then what the hell is going on?" she barked, backing up slightly, surpressing the urge to turn invisible. If Barry really was the Streak, then she didn't want to out herself as a Powered. Oh shit, didn't Barry say that his mother was kill by a man faster than light- "Because three months ago you woke up fine and dandy from a nine month nap and now you're running fast as light and powers are getting offed-"

"Loralee, your hyperventalating-"

She was, that happened when Loralee started panicking. She hadn't been this surprised since the first time she was bitten by a rattlesnake during a lab experiment in college. "Then explain, Bartholomew!"

"Maybe," the lantino man started, causing Loralee to snapp her attention to him. "We hould sit down and talk about this? I'm kinda the expert on Barry, so i can aanswer all of your questions." The man in the wheelchair looked on wearily, and the other woman scoffed. "But maybe later? How about over a nice meal? You like itallian?"

Barry groaned and face palmed. 

"Are you asking me out on a date?" Loralee asked evenly. Oddly enough the man's antics were calming her. If he was comfortable enough to not be fighten by the Streak then maybe Barry was some speeding murderer.

"Not a date, just a calm conversation over dnner that will be sure to be filled eith witty conversation and tittlating scientific jargon." 

Loralee barked a laugh, a little hysteric, a little loud, but it was genuine. "I don't think ive ever heard the words tittleating and jargon in the same sentense." 

"Loralee." Barry called, finally free from the clutches of the cardboard boxes and the hovering woman. He looked worried, green eyes trianed on Loralee's own. "I really can explain."

The doctor scoffed and scratched her nose, slipping off her glasses. "You always had a way of way of running into trouble." she mumbled, crossing her arms and meeting Barry's gaze again. "About time you finally have the means to run out of it." Barry's worried expresion craked and he looked relieve as Loralee walked past the man in the wheelchair, past the long-haired man, and sat in an open chair infront of a large and cluttered desk. "Okay, then explain."

 

-_-_-_-_-

 

"Bartholomew, that is the shadiest explination i have ever heard."

Barry shrugged, looking distressed. "That's what happened. I still am trying to wrap my head aound it."

Loralee sighed heavily and leaned into the chair. "So, just to recap." She pointed to Dr. Wells, who looked unimpressed but curious. "You created a dark matter machine for shits and giggles and it literally blows up in your face." she pointed to Barry "You got hit with the radiation the same time you got stuck by lightening and got super speed, and every other "meta" has powers associated with their surrounding." Loralee gestured vaguelyy to the rest of the cortex, "And now your all playing hero to make up for the misdeeds." She swiveled dramatically around to look at Dr. Wells, who was eyeing her strangely. "Did I get that about right?"

"Well when you put it like that..." Cisco huffed behind her.

"How shaksepereian." Wells hummes, finally speaking. "But what I am more curious about, is why you came to STAR Labs today. You never sought Mr. Allen out here before."

The redhead tilted her head in thought, considering her response. The occupants of the lab watched as Loralee fished for her words. 

"If, if I show you, you have to take it better than how I took you being the Streak." she said slowly, turning to barry and standing. 

Barry looked confused, opening his mouth to surely say something along the lines of "That doesn't make any sense." or "Take what better." or even "I don't think I can take you being whatever you are worse than thinking i was a speeding serial killer."

But before Barry could even voice anything, Loralee already allowed herself to turn invisible. What was the harm? Barry and his merry band of scientist seem to want to help anyone that the Partical Accelorator fucked over (and man, had Loralee been fucked over). What they could help, hell, they might be able to reverse it. 

"Holy shit, dude."

"Oh my god!"

"Lora, what the-"

"Fascinating, is that all you can do?"

Loralee decided that Harrison Wells was creepy. A random stranger shows she can turn invisible and he asks if she could do any other tricks. Not to mention he made Loralee's stomach curl in an unpleasant way whenever she looked at him. Loralee blamed it on Dr. Wells causing her to be like this. It was a logical reason no to trust him.

"I have retractable fang, produce toxin, and stick to walls."

Cisco perked up. "Like Spider-man?"

Barry laughed a little to himself. "You hummed the song, didn't you?"

Loralee scoffed and turned away while Caitlin scuttled around her portion o the Cortex. 

"Invisibility? Can i take samples? Blood and skin? And possible an MRI? The possibilities!"

Loralee raised her head to the medical doctor in question. "Why do i have a feeling you did this to Bartholomew when he first exhibited his speed?"

 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Several Months Later

(Let's face it, do any of us have the patience to read an episode compliant multichapter fic with no hide or hair of Lenny for at least fie chapter? Don't worry, there'll be flash backs if there's any need for explanation)

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

 

Loralee looked about the chaos. The police barricades were half-burnt, half-frozen; Barry was being chased by dual bright white and a fiery orange beams; and half the block was in ruins. She heaved a sigh and adjusted the mask upon her face, then the straps on her legs, and the gloves on her hands before Cisco’s voice filtered through her ear

 _“Uh, hate to rush you, but Barry ain't doing so hot, Lors.”_ the engineer said with worry.

Barry fell off the building he was running on in a literal blaze of glory.

“... I think Bartholomew is too hot, actually.”

 _“See! I told you she makes jokes!”_ Caitlin cheered on the comm link.

 _“Loralee, see what you can do. The beams need to cross.”_ Dr. Wells reminded sagely.

“On it, Harrison.” Loralee said curtly, walking slowly to the center of the road. No one could see her yet, her chameleon factor still in effect. With a heavy sigh, she dropped her defense, and watched in amusement as the police stared at the new figure.

Loralee brought her fingers to her lips and blew a long and loud whistle.

For a brief moment, the noise stopped. The ray guns stilled and the police’s chattering ceased. Captain Cold and the newly dubbed Heatwave turned slowly to her, almost comically. She could feel Snart rake his eyes up and down her form, assessing her, looking for a weakness. With a shuddering breath, Loralee began to speak, if for nothing more than to give Flash a breather.

“You boys got room on your dance card for me?”

 _“You’re battle banter is already better than Barry’s.”_ Cisco laughed in her ear.

“Snart, who’s she.” Heatwave demanded his partner.

Cold tilted his head in thought, once again staring intently. “A new player, apparently.” he turned to face Loralee entirely. “An unanticipated one.”

Heatwave scowled at that, and aimed his gun at Loralee. “You’ve got ten seconds to vacate, or else you’ll be charred.”

“Our fight’s not with you.” Cold added, leveling his own gun on the new hero.

Loralee shrugged, placing her hands on her hips in an act of false bravado. “You’re shooting at my friend and destroying a block of my city. Like it or not, you made my fight.” she locked eyes with Snart, and even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew he was staring her down through his darkly tinted goggles.

Snart frowned and tilted his head in a bird-like manner, and shrugged. “Then it’s your death.” and a bluish white beam made its way directly to Loralee’s chest.

It stung a bit, when it eventually made contact. Just a bit. The force pushed her back a few inches, obviously,and her middle was encased with ice, but it wasn’t a horrible wound. Funny, Bartholomew made it seem so much worst.

 _“Loralee! Loralee your vitals-_ ”

“Caitlin, I’m fine.” Loralee murmured, cracking her neck. The look of surprise on Snart’s and Rory’s face was nearly worth the good doctor’s yammering. “Cold-blooded. I adjust.” she said out-loud, loud enough for Snart to hear, as an explanation as to why she wasn’t on the ground brittled with frostbite.

Heatwave snarled, and attempted to shoot her, only to suddenly be across the street.

“Get the beams to cross!” Flash yelled above the confusion. Aaaaaannndddd he got shot by a stream of fire. Typical.

With another scowl, Snart advanced towards her, and with a deep frown, Loralee sprinted the other direction.

 

\---

 

Understandably confused, Captain Cold stopped walking, and watched as the strange new hero with dull orange hair ran towards… a wall?

Whoever this newbie was was a hell of a lot less braver when she was being pursued. With a clever retort on his tongue, he waited until the idiotic girl ran face-first into the brick wall.

But she didn’t run face first into the wall. She jumped, pretty high actually, and… stuck to the  wall? God, Leonard really was beginning to hate the sudden influx of metahumans. First it was the storm guy, and the color guy, not to mention guy who turned into poisonous gas. And now a girl who can climb on walls. Maybe she can slip?

She doesn’t move as fast as Flash does, making icing the patch in front of her covered in ice shouldn’t be as difficult, but the second there was a flash of light from his gun, she disappears. There was a crash beneath the ice patch, the garbage cans scattered about. Even a man with half of the critical thinking Leonard possess figured out the cause.

“So you turn invisible and climb on walls?” he called, his tone dripping with fake interest as the green clad girl pulled herself from the pile of metal cans. “What, are you a chameleon or something.”

She frowned, or snarled, the goggles only helped when the gun was firing, before speaking.

“Or something.” she hissed, before charging him.

She ducked the next beam, and bent backwards into a bridge to avoid the one after that. The Captain snarled and tried again.

“What? No banter? No quips? Flash is far more fun than this!” He drawled, using his gun to gesture to the scarlet speedster.

The girl in green disappeared again, only to reappear less than a foot away from the rogue.

“I don’t mince words.” She said curtly, then promptly introduce her fist to the thief’s face.

Leonard stumbled back, surprised by the force. He really shouldn’t be that surprised, girls who are smaller than him always tend to hit harder, if his sister and various ex-lovers proved anything.

A hard laugh broke through Captain Cold’s teeth. “So you _do_ have some fight in you.” The cold gun aimed at the red head.

Focusing on the new hero became very difficult when a beam of fire from Mick’s gun lighted up the area behind her, making the hero a silhouette.

In a, as Leonard will later admit, poor split second decision, he shot blindly, in a mad hope to hit his opponent in the head. Sadly, Leonard’s target sudden vanished.

Realizing that the blaze that Mick was controlling was heading toward him, Cold lowered his gun and fixed himself to run away from the stream.

In another stroke of bad luck, Leonard realized too late he was immobilized. A sudden presence behind him.

A pale set of arms slithered tightly around his torso, lithe and incredibly strong. One arm reached up and dropped the sliver of exposed flesh between Cold’s glove and jacket cuff, and the hero’s thumb pressed firmly on the faint blue vein.

Leonard’s fingers curled together against his will, forcing him to squeeze the trigger of his cold gun.

Again, too little too late, Snart realized the inevitable.

Ice white and burning orange beams crossed, and suddenly the cold gun wouldn’t disengage even after Leonard let go of the trigger. The exposed arms released him and the presence behind him vanished.

Then there was an explosion.

—

As soon as the beams crossed, Loralee scuttled away, pressing herself onto the building she was previously climbing. A large wet spot stained the side, making contact cold and damp.

Both Cold and Heatwave flew through the air as meeting space of the beams exploded.

A streak of red past her then trailed back around, and it took Loralee a few precious seconds to meet the green eyes of her partner. It took longer to realize he was talking to her.

“Hey, hey hey hey, Lors, you good?” Barry asked tenderly, helping the woman to her feet.

“I’ll survive.” She groaned, rubbing her eyes, the mask shifting slightly. “Get the pyro. I’ll handle the ice-prick.”

“ _Haha, ice-prick. Good one!_ ” Cisco cheered.

The speedster didn’t look thrilled at the prospect, but he figured that she could handle herself. So Flash sped away and the green-clad hero awkwardly stepped to the cold themed villain.

Just as a precaution she had her chameleon factor turned on.

Captain Cold was coming too by the time she made it to him. Even knowing the gun was useless, Loralee still made quick work snatching up the weapon as Snart scrambled for it.

When she turned off her cloaking factor, Snart laughed and fell to the ground.

“You-“ he chuckled. “I wasn’t expecting you. I had everything planned.” He coughed, and pulled his goggles down to his neck, rolling over to his back, deliberately forcing the ginger into eye contact. “You’re a wrench in my plans.”

“I have a gift of annoying people.” She said simply, staring down at the villain unblinkingly. Truthfully she was scared to look away. God knows what this opportunity would do if he saw an opening.

Snart smirked and let his head fall down. “Did you get that gift with the wall climbing and invisibility thing?”

Loralee didn’t say anything. She watched from the corner of her eye Detective Thawne slowly advancing towards Barry and an unconscious Rory.

“Why so quiet? Worried about your partner.” He sneered. “He lived, unfortunately, thanks to you.”

Loralee scowled, and Cold seemed smug at that. “Flash would have taken you down without my help, Snart.”

He smirked even wider, sharper. “So you know my name.” He practically purred. The sound made Loralee’s stomach curl in wariness. “How about you tell me yours?”

Cisco and Caitlin were silent. They must have been talking to Barry. Loralee knee that the engineer had been throwing around aliases for her alter ego, but she supposed it’s her final decision after all.

“Reptile.” Loralee provided, gripping the dead gun to her chest, still staring at Snart with distrust. “But that’s not important. What’s important is that you failed.” She insisted vehemently.

And Leonard Snart had the audacity to actually laugh. “Lost? Oh no, Reptile,on the contrary. This is a win in my book. Now Flash can’t hide in the shadows anymore.” A pained chuckle floated from his mouth and Loralee briefly wondered how badly the blast had injured the rogue. “And now neither can you.”

“Reptile!” Barry called, suddenly flocking her.

So Barry heard that last bit. Great.

“Your ride’s here.” Cold said lamely, laying his head flat against the sidewalk and closing his eyes, looking completely at peace with himself.

Loralee felt like yelling at the rogue. Yell at him for finding the whole situation amusing. Scold him for endangering other at the sake of a pissing contest. Scream at him for making sweet Cisco riddled with guilt because of the dead weapon in her hands. Talk at him until he felt any sort of remorse.

But her partner had scooped her up in his arms and rushed her to STAR Labs, dropping the cold gun in the back of a police cruiser on the way.

 

—-

 

Loralee sighed as she saw Mick Rory pushed the police officers restraining him to the floor as he raves about the “pigs”.

Honestly the only reason she came to the station was to make sure her father. Her encounter with Snart left a bad feeling in the pits of her stomach, and seeing her father would ease it, if only a little bit.

She wasn’t there to personally see Captain Cold and Heatwave get thrown into a cell.

Really, she wasn’t.

Barry reclined on Loralee’s father’s desk next to her, Cisco sitting in the chair, spinning around with the dead weapons in a cardboard box on his lap.

The horrible thing about Officer Milton’s desk chair is that it has this awful tendency to squeak when too much weight is distributed to the right side, and Cisco’s constant turning and shifting caused the offending noise to repeat itself incessantly and to grate on Loralee’s nerve.

God dammit she just fell off a building, she’s allowed to testy.

“Francisco, stop moving or I’ll throw you in with my alligators.” the redheaded woman hissed lowly just o the engineer could hear.

Cisco blanched but ceased his spinning.

“Your partner’s a real hot-head.” Joe West joked monotonously.

“That's funny.” Snart drawled, unamused, surveying the station. The rest of the exchange was lost on the doctor.

Loralee froze at the voice, her eyes instantly lifting to watch as the rogue was walked to his cell, much calmer than his partner was. She watched silently the entire time, even when Leonard Snart’s blue eyes locked on her gaze with a fierce intensity, as if daring her to do something.

Loralee was already very much aware she was afraid of Captain Cold, so she was too scared to look away. She was thankful, probably for the first time in her life that she had a neutral resting face, naturally unable to betray her feelings of distrust and fear.

Then a strange occurrence transpired.

The chilling glare that Snart leveled her with changed. It became inquisitive, questioning. Logically, he was trying to figure out why a woman who was obviously not a police officer but leaning casually against a police officer’s desk was doing in the station in the first place and why said woman was staring at him with a blank expression. Maybe he was trying to confuse her, seem less threatening to get her to look away. Maybe he recognized her in the light, maybe Loralee’s features were easy to place without the domino mask and the poor lighting of the street lamps and police cruiser headlights.

Snart smirked and tilted his head downward, making him resemble a shark.

Loralee’s neural visage finally broke as she flinched. She hated sharks. Granted, Loralee hated all fish and anything that had gill and lived in a body of water but sharks were worse than any old tuna that typically skeeved her out.

Snart’s smirk stretched victoriously as he finally broke eye contact. Loralee released a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding. Just beyond Snart, though, a familiar face appeared. In a poor decision, the red hooded woman called out.

“Papa! Over here!”

And Loralee immediately regretted that decision. Her father was one of the arresting officers. Snart probably already knew his badge number a a brief history of Officer Milton Vukavitch’s life. if the rogue was paying enough attention, which he always is apparently,he can figure out who Loralee was, at the very least figure out that she was a scientist and the daughter of the officer that arrested him. What if he pieces together that Loralee was the Reptile. What if he discovers the Flash’s identity through her? What if he finds out about Lo-

“Hey sweetheart. What’re you doin’ here?” her father asked softly.

Milton Vukavitch, in Loralee’s opinion, had always resembled a fat bird. Like his Slavic ancestors, the officer had a sharp and high nose that was simply beakish. His diminishing hairline was not doing him any favors hiding his wide forehead and stubborn hair refused to stay down and looked like grey and white plumage. Papa had always have had the habit of tilting his head every which way when talking or thinking about something in particular. He was a short and typically jovial.

And Loralee looked nothing like him. Not in the least bit; they had always looked like perfect strangers.

Loralee mentally shook the thought away and smiled at her father before kissing his cheek. “Can’t i visit my papa at work anymore?” she asked in a sugary tone.

Milton smiled fondly and gently ran his thumb across his daughter’s cheek. “You hate the station. And after the whole fiasco the city went through… I thought you be at home.”

”Under my rock?”

Another smile. “Something like that.”

loralee felt eyes on her. Not Barry’s or Cisco’s or any one else’s. Cold eyes. The doctor would bet her last buck that Snart was still staring at her, smirking or glaring or expressionless. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back.

Loralee figured that would be her last brace act of the day. She debuted as a hero, stared down Snart, and refusing to look back at him. Yay Lorrie. 

-_-_-_-

Leonard’s eyes watched the nicely dress woman from where he was being fingerprinted. Anyone who maintain eye contact for that long with him usually hit shot. Her hair almost looked blonde in the yellow lights of the station; skin looked sickly. The vibrancy of her outfit seemed to sap the color from her. 

‘Who wears that much green?’ He though dismayally to himself. 

The color triggered thought of his encounter with the new hero. Reptile. Where was she months ago when he debuted? Why hasn’t he heard anything about her? He thought Flash would be his biggest problem; but a woman who turns invisible and can climb walls? Oh, the wasted talent.

Once in the holding cell, Len smiled devilishly to himself. If he could pin down the Reptile, maybe he could… pursuade her to join him. Invisiblity is very useful in his line of work. 

Mick looked over and cocked an eyebrow at his partner. “You’ve got that face on again. I hate that face.”

Len turned and smirked. “Oh yes of little faith. I’m just thinking about hypotheticals, Mick. Harmless musings.”

The pyro grunted. “Harmless my ass.”

Len shrugged, and went back to his thinking; all those possibilities.


End file.
